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Not All Like That Christians Project amplifies Christian support for equality

For several years now, support for the freedom to marry and equality for members of the LGBT community has continually increased among Christians and people of faith, tracking upward with rapid growth. More and more, people of faith are declaring their support for LGBT people and explaining that their faith compels them to support - not oppose - extending marriage protections to all loving and commited couples.

This week, a new project launched to amplify the voices of Christians who support the LGBT community. It's designed as a direct counterpoint to some high-profile Christians who speak out in favor of discrimination and claim to speak for all people of faith - people like Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, and other leaders of groups that work to harm LGBT people and same-sex couples in the United States. The initiative, Not All Like That Christians, was inspired by a term coined by writer and media personality Dan Savage to identify Christians across the country who have voiced their opposition to anti-gay leaders and said that not all Christians are "like that."

It Gets Better is LGBT people talking to other LGBT people. The NALT Christians Project is Christians - and hopefully no small number of straight Christians - talking to LGBT people and other Christians, LGBT and straight. ... To the NALT Christians who confide in me their support of LGBT people, I've always said, 'Don't tell me that not all Christians are anti-gay bigots. Tell that to all the so-called anti-gay Christian leaders who claim to speak for all Christians. Tell the world there are Christians who support LGBT people.

The NALT Christians Project is a formalization and reiteration of what we already know: That increasingly, fair-minded Christians are supporting same-sex couples and the broader LGBT community despite positions taken by high-profile Christians and some Church hierarchies. These people of faith often understand that their religion has called on them to fully commit to each other, and that marriage is the only way to make this lifetime commitment.

Christians and other people of faith have also increasingly grown to understand that marriage laws that extend the freedom to marry to same-sex couples in states across the country apply to civil marriage and have fair protections of religious freedom ensuring that religious institutions that do not support marriage for same-sex couples will not be forced to perform these marriages.

We applaud people of faith - and the Christians who participate in and are moved by the NALT Christian Project. We appreciate their leadership in the movement to advance equality and the freedom to marry across the country.